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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24254416">Dear April,</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scallion/pseuds/Scallion'>Scallion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A3! (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:53:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24254416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scallion/pseuds/Scallion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>April brings his hands around Itaru's throat, thoughts of red flowers blooming.</p><p>Chikage laces his fingers between Itaru's own, thoughts of red threads entwining.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chigasaki Itaru/Utsuki Chikage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dear April,</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>What is this idk...? I just think they're neat... </p><p>Thinking about chikage vs april dynamic...</p><p>Really just an experimental piece BUT I HOPE YALL ENJOY ANYWAYS.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are times when Chikage wants to push Itaru out of a window simply because of irritation, and other times where anger boils in his veins and he wants nothing more than to wrap his fingers around that pretty neck and squeeze until the light in his eyes go out.</p><p>Itaru’s greatest crime, exceeding his faux faces, and insufferable gamer references was that he made Chikage <em>feel</em>.</p><p>And that was the issue wasn’t it? Itaru had made him care, and what did Itaru do with that privilege? Treat his own life like some game that could be restarted.</p><p>“Why are you angry senpai? I was the one who got hurt,” Chikage grumbles, “Look at this my rank has dropped, and I looked like total cannon fodder while you got the anti hero role.”</p><p>“Are you trying to die?”</p><p>“No, but if it happens, it happens — game over.”</p><p>Life does not continue against all odds. It is here one moment, and gone the next, so easily ended by a pull of a trigger or twist of a neck.</p><p>“Why are you like this?”</p><p>“It’s nbd. I’m alive. You’re alive.”</p><p>“But you could have —” Chikage finds himself unwilling to say it.</p><p>“Is it really that serious?”</p><p>April kisses him angrily, biting down until he tastes metallic blood. Fingers tracing against the pulse in his neck.</p><p>He’s alive, he’s alive, your idiot is alive.</p><p>Chikage cups Itaru’s cheeks, pulling him closer and closer. He tastes of adrenaline and fear, a stuttering flame overwhelmed by darkness, intangible. Chikage needs to be closer, to know he’s here.</p><p>They are of two oceans meeting, crashing waves and violent tides. Closer still — gravity, gravity, and he knows with every touch, he pulls him into earth’s crevices, where it’s dark and Itaru does not belong. Closer, closer — only for the trance to be broken by — I can’t breathe.</p><p>( Neither can I when you look at me like that. )</p><p>The taste of blood lingers like a ghost.</p><p>Rain pelts the window panes.</p><p>April wants to drown this weakness.</p><p>Chikage wants to protect him.</p><p>For despite all Itaru’s flaws and rough edges, he is kind in a way that is exploitable.</p><p>This world will sink their fangs into him and bleed him dry.</p><p>That’s why he has to bare his fangs first.</p><p>April presses his thumb to the split in Itaru’s lip, pressing down until red dots his finger.</p><p>Like rouge, he smudges it across his lips, tracing higher, tenderly touching a bruise.</p><p>A sharp inhale of breath cuts through the silence of the room.</p><p>“You’ll forget about me one day.”</p><p>“Never.”</p><p>“Guess I can’t call you unromantic anymore.”</p><p>Chikage laces their fingers together, like woven threads, and lays a kiss upon each knuckle, stopping when he hears an undignified sniffle.</p><p>“That was really fucking scary senpai, like level 100 fucking scary.”</p><p>“I know,” Chikage says, “ — but I’m a cheat character you’ll never lose.”</p><p>— And with that Itaru snorts, unappealing and utterly Itaru that Chikage reaches for him again, kissing him, wet face and all.</p><p>He tastes of home, and sun showers, and blooming flowers.</p>
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